Little room for hot air in energy debate

Ireland is set to travel a bumpy — and very expensive — road in the journey to meet its clean energy and carbon emission reduction targets, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

We are currently losing the battle to curb the growth in CO2 emissions. We continue to run up a huge import bill, around €6bn annually, while exposing ourselves to heavy fines for breaches of limits set at EU level.

Over the past two years, Ireland’s total emissions have increased by 7%. We are now back to levels last seen in 2009. This is simply not good enough.